Flyers' perpetual penalties bring back referee rumor

The Flyers’ Steve Downie is sent flying after a collision with the Capitals’ Connor Carrick during the second period Wednesday. Downie was penalized for elbowing in the third period, opening the window for a Washington comeback in a game the Flyers would win, 6-4. (Associated Press)

VOORHEES, N.J. — There is a belief surrounding the Flyers that is almost organic in nature. It has withstood the test of time, defies all matter of sports convention and is easily shrugged off by educated followers of hockey logic not prejudiced by parochial boundaries.

Yet the infected and affected still will say it: The referees have it in for the Flyers.

They could be longtime fans, suffering championship withdrawal for only the past 39 years.

They could be Flyers broadcasters, ticket sellers, players or coaches, past or present, who have been around long enough to somehow believe what they have long heard — that from the dawn of the Broad Street Bully age, the ref has not been our friend.

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Craig Berube was and is “a Flyer.” A longtime player and assistant coach here, a current rookie head coach who has done a superb job of taking this assembly of players and teaching them the basic lessons of winning hockey.

Amid yet another public teaching moment Thursday, however, Berube had to struggle in spite of himself to discern what is real and what is Flyers legend. What about that nagging notion about the Flyers and NHL referees, anyway?

“Call up the league and ask them,” Berube said with a resigned sense of humor.

What’s real is what he’d just been going on about, how for all his success at reaching what early in the season was a disorganized team of talented underachievers, he has yet to find a way to keep them out of the penalty box.

The latest example was Wednesday’s 6-4 victory over the Washington Capitals, which through two periods had been as dominating a game as the Flyers played all season. And then in a flurry of whistles ... it was not.

There was a trip committed here and an elbow thrown there and a hook called after that and what had been a four-goal lead suddenly became a 4-3 lead over a Capitals team often ineffective but always willing to right things with its powerful power play.

The Flyers would eventually right themselves, first with a second Jake Voracek goal of the game, then with a couple of defensively competent minutes of scramble before Steve Downie popped a shot into an empty net at the other end.

“Our team’s had to fight hard this year to get to where they’re at,” Berube said Thursday. “They battle. They’ve got good character. I love the way we’re coming out right now in games; playing hard and fast and physical. I don’t want to stop doing that. But I don’t want to go to the penalty box because of it.”

These Flyers, who have won eight of their last 10, who have been one of the winningest teams in the league over the past four months while recovering from the throes of a 1-7 season commencement, still take too many ill-advised, ill-timed penalties.

It’s not always that way. The tripping call mentioned previously probably saved a goal. The hook, Berube swore, probably shouldn’t have been called. And that elbow?

Shouldn’t have been thrown. But it was, as so many other minor crimes by members of this team have been needlessly perpetrated. Berube pointed to a first period in the prior game, Sunday in Washington. More penalties, more trouble, a hole from which the Flyers had to climb.

It doesn’t have to be this hard.

“You take three penalties in a period, they’re probably going to get six or seven shots on the power play,” Berube said. “They’re going to get good shots because they’re a good power play and they’ve got skill. And if you do that, it puts you on your heels.”

The Flyers lead the NHL in penalty minutes per game at 15.6. They are No. 1 in major penalties with 40; No. 2 in minor penalties with 283.

In short, they take too many of them. Berube has been harping on that all season.

“It doesn’t help them,” he said. “It doesn’t help anybody. If you can play a game taking two or three penalties rather than taking five or six you’re better off, aren’t you?”

Then again, while acknowledging the Flyers had once again put themselves in trouble with penalties Wednesday, Berube the next day would honestly say, “I didn’t like the calls.”

Thus, he detailed his video-enhanced opinion, but in that simple, honest assessment, Berube left the door open for a sniff of the local legend.

“Since I’ve been coaching up here (with the Flyers), we’ve been the most penalized team in the league, I think, every year,” Berube said. So...”

So he promptly lopped off any conclusive ending with a laugh. As a player, as a coach, Craig Berube’s been around Philadelphia long enough to know one thing: This legend about refs having it in for the Flyers is something that should always be dealt with in good humor.

So long as the lesson it carries is seriously conveyed.

“Am I happy with the penalties? Not really. I’m not sure they were warranted,” Berube said. “But I don’t like to complain about refereeing, because it’s a tough job. I’m not sitting here complaining about the refs, but I didn’t like the calls, that’s all.”

Nor does he like the way his players so easily draw them. And in the real world, that’s because of the way they play.

Penalties. Even talking about them eventually gets old, doesn’t it?

“Yup!” Berube boomed. “You guys shouldn’t ask another question about penalties, and I probably shouldn’t say another word about them, because it doesn’t work. Does it?”

Then, with a bit of a sigh, he added, “I don’t know what to do. ... So, just keep playing. Keep working. Try to do our best to reduce them somehow, you know? We’re working on it.”

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NOTES: Ray Emery missed practice Thursday with his lower-body/groin injury, leaving Cal Heeter here as a backup. Steve Mason will thus start Saturday in Toronto. ... Berube said he liked what he saw of new defenseman Andrew MacDonald and what his presence has done on the blue line. “I like the pairs,” Berube said. “We’ve got (three sets of) a puck mover with a big defenseman who defends well.”